10 tips for spring and summer activities outdoors

Summer is the season for spending time outdoors. There are plenty of things you can do in your own yard. Check out even the more distant corners where you don’t usually go. You may be surprised and find a peaceful oasis where you can quietly read a book or have a picnic. If the yard looks messy after the winter, the first activity tip is to grab a broom and rake. Instead of a traditional cleaning work party, you can arrange a relay: one starts by doing one thing, someone else continues, and before you know it, the yard is all clean and tidy.

Photo challenge

Most of us have a mobile phone equipped with a camera, and there are many things to photograph in the yard. This challenge inspires you to seek new perspectives. This game is called “seek and shoot”.

a)    Each participant has a mobile phone with a camera.

b)    Everyone gets a specific task: find something yellow/wet/fun/etc. and take a photo of it.

c)    At the end of the challenge, you show your photos to each other and talk about them.

Skipping rope or play elastics

A good old skipping rope and elastics offer both a good time and good exercise! How many different elastics routines do you know? Adults may be intrigued by the fact that 10 minutes of skipping rope equals 30 minutes of jogging – feel free to hop in!

Help the sun

You can help the sun do its work in the spring and summer. If there are piles of snow still remaining in the spring, you can help melt it by spreading it around, in puddles of water, for example. And then you can help drain the puddles by creating little streams and ditches. Ditch-making is particularly fun in the rain!

Become a painter

Take your pens, watercolours and drawing blocks outside and get creative! Make a masterpiece painting of your favourite tree, for example.

Have a picnic

Do like the Famous Five: Pack an amazing lunch – sandwiches, muffins, biscuits and juice, for example – in a basket and eat it outdoors. You don’t have to go any further than your own yard. Just grab a blanket to sit on and enjoy your lunch. Of course, you can also solve crimes while you eat, or if you are not feeling that adventurous, settle for crossword puzzles.

Water balloon fight

A water balloon fight is great fun on a hot summer day. Or when it rains. In either case, you don’t have to mind getting wet. However, always make sure that you don’t hit any civilians (people not participating in the game)!

Arrange a candlelit dinner

Set up a large table in the yard and invite all your neighbours for dinner. You can ask everyone to bring a dish. Decorate the table beautifully with flowers and candles. It is very pleasant to eat and chat together in the gently dimming summer night. This is also a good way to thank people who have participated in a work party.

Parkour

You can build a parkour track for the whole family in your own yard. Let the children plan and design the track and show how it is done – adults can follow if they’re able to! Remember that in parkour, you come into contact with the ground and other surfaces, so wear suitable clothes and durable shoes with a good grip. You can even do parkour in the rain, but be very careful because wet surfaces can be slippery.

Always check the condition of fences and other such obstacles before climbing or jumping over them. When practiced smartly, parkour is safe and great fun!

Open a butterfly bar

It is nice to have butterflies around, and you can make your yard more inviting for them. Butterflies need feeding, especially in the spring and autumn. Butterfly feeders, “bars”, can be bought in outdoor gear stores, for example. A good “drink” for butterflies is a mix of red wine and red wine vinegar (50:50). You can also feed butterflies from an empty yoghurt container and add pieces of apple or banana to the liquid.

Place the butterfly feeder on a level surface and make sure that it will not make an unpleasant mess if it tips over.

Grow herbs and vegetables

Food tastes better if you have grown it yourself! However, in apartment buildings you need permission to grow plants in the yard. You can ask the property maintenance company, the building’s janitor or the housing company’s board of directors for this permission.

The easiest way to start farming is to plant seeds or plants in pots or special plant bags. In this way, you can grow plants even in a yard that is covered with asphalt. In addition, the pots or bags can be moved if they bother someone. Herbs are easy to start with. You can buy a ready, grown herb in the grocery store and plant it in a bigger pot. Remember that the bigger the pot, the more seldom you need to water it.

Herbs and vegetables grow best in a sunny place. They require at least 6 hours of sunlight a day.

You can agree on watering turns with your neighbours and also share the crop.

For example, it can be used in the candlelit dinner!

Read more:

In Finland´s 100th anniversary year 2017 YIT inspired Finns to join hands in developing the yard of the future, offering assistance for making yard areas more appealing with good deeds. You can read more about the yard concept from our webpages.

For further information, please contact:

Kristina Broman, Brand Manager, YIT Oyj, tel. +35840 840 3166, kristina.broman@yit.fi
Hanna Malmivaara, Vice President, Communications, YIT Corporation, tel. +35840 561 6568, hanna.malmivaara@yit.fi

YIT is the largest Finnish and significant North European construction company. We develop and build apartments, business premises and entire areas. We are also specialised in demanding infrastructure construction and paving. Together with our customers our 10,000 professionals are creating more functional, more attractive and more sustainable cities and environments. We work in 11 countries: Finland, Russia, Scandinavia, the Baltic States, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. The new YIT was born when over 100-year-old YIT Corporation and Lemminkäinen Corporation merged on February 1, 2018. Our pro forma revenue for 2017 was over EUR 3.8 billion. YIT Corporation's share is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Oy. www.yitgroup.com